


Hilda’s Country Garden

by BardicRaven



Category: Hilda the Plus-Size Pin-up Series - Duane Bryers
Genre: Gen, Life Choices, Making art, Slice of Life, Ya Do What Ya Gotta Do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21952633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: Hilda hasn't always lived in the country, but she does now.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 13
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Hilda’s Country Garden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HerbertBest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbertBest/gifts).



> Pictures of Hilda: https://www.toilgirls.com/hildagallery
> 
> A larger gallery: https://www.boredpanda.com/plus-size-pinup-girl-hilda-duane-bryers/

Hilda didn’t always live in the country. Once, she was a small-town girl, beloved of all the boys and not nearly so of all the girls. She tried taking her charms to the city, which is where she found her calling as a pin-up, but the vast seas of concrete began to drown her soul, and as soon as she could, she left.

Besides, she’d gathered quite the throng of admirers in the city, far more than she felt comfortable with, and the country was a way to filter them down to only those she chose to admit into her world.

She bought herself a ‘gentlewoman’s farm’, a few acres in the country, just enough that she could settle in with her dogs and her cats and buy herself a flock of geese and one of chickens to provide eggs, and a few goats and cows to provide milk, as well as a pig that she privately determined never to slaughter.

After she was settled, Hilda took a look at her finances and gave a little cry of distress at how little was left. Then after a moment of panic, she shook herself and smiled.

What was she worrying for? She was a pin-up girl with a large following of admirers and she was willing to bet the farm (literally in this case) that they would love to see her in some country scenes.

So she reached out to her old illustrator and some of her old photographers and found people who were willing to work with her.

After that, it was merely a matter of putting that sharp brain under her firey hair of hers to work, to come up with scenes that would both titillate and share her love of the land and the animals around her.

* * *

# Spring

In the Spring, she celebrated the return of light and warmth by running with the frogs, carrying a bouquet of the first flowers, her flowered hat that she’d rescued from its winter obscurity flying off her head as she ran from sheer joy.

She celebrated the return of life by sharing the scene she found one day of a momma-bird who’d decided that her mailbox was the perfect spot to build her nest and raise her chicks. Tenderhearted, she’d left them and set up a temporary mailbox nearby, instructing the local mailman to use that instead until the babies were old enough to fly.

She also resigned herself to having a yellowed splotch in her painting of her drainpipes and eaves once she got up to do the final drainpipe and saw the nest of cheeping chicks. She was tempted for a moment, after all, it wouldn’t affect them directly, then sighed and painted around them. There’d be time later and it wasn’t as if it were her house that was being put into the public’s eye, after all.

Then there was also the nest of baby bluebirds whose parents trusted her enough to feed them the worms from her planned fishing trip. Somehow, this made the exasperation at yellow drainpipes and mailboxes she couldn't use fade into the background as the love and trust the parents showed her became her world.

Men admired the bikinis of Spring and, she hoped, also took in the lessons about being kind to one’s fellow creatures. Humans were not the only people on the planet, after all.

* * *

# Summer

Early summer found her sharing some of the first cherries of the season with an eager and yet respectful skunk. Hilda had a way with animals of all kinds, she’d discovered, from the humans around her to her dogs, cats, and barnyard animals, to the wildlife that shared the farm with her. She liked living in harmony with them and with the land. She found it both easier and far more restful, the loud clamour and stress-strife of the city fading from her ears.

A trip to the beach, a trip to the creek, lounging on a towel wearing her flowers and being investigated by bees, summer was the time for relaxation and the pictures she had them create reflected that. Here too, were pictures of the night – her catching fireflies by the light of the moon and another of her saying a simple thank you! to the Creator under the summer stars with her beloved Spot sitting at her feet.

Summer also meant that she could take showers out of doors, the rain of water from the holey bucket she’d strung in a tree sluicing down over her body, as she closed her eyes and held her face under the water, the water tracing the lines of her blissful smile.

One of her favorites was the scene down by the creek, where she lounged in the hammock she’d strung across the water and read while she fished by means of a line attached to her toe. It was a surprisingly effective way to fish, she’d discovered. And she got some good reading in, too.

Again, as she wore her flowers over her bikinis, and sometimes just her flowers, to please her admirers, she hoped to show that there was more than one way to do things, if one were willing to be open to new ideas and ways.

* * *

# Autumn

In Autumn, she had them come and take pictures of her collecting autumn leaves on her bike as she wore one of the last bikinis of the year and falling asleep carving a pumpkin in a neighbor’s field, as well as carrying another almost half as big as she was home for the pot and the oven.

She borrowed a scythe from one of her neighbors and tried it out on her pasture-grass, causing Spot to run for his life from what he saw as wild swinging. That was a scene that they all agreed would not need to be duplicated in future.

Only slightly more successful was the time she tried stiltwalking in the pasture. She was going along okay when Spot sprinted by chasing Purr, the cat, and the pair of them ran right under her stilts. By the time she hit the ground, they were long gone. By the time they’d returned, she’d forgiven them.

At least mostly.

* * *

# Winter

In the winter, the photographer and the illustrator came and worked with Hilda on a plethora of scenes featuring her and her red flannel pajamas. Wearing them, putting them on, taking them off, mending them, washing them, Hilda knew full well that those who looked at her would imagine themselves keeping her warm as well.

* * *

# Letters

They did. They also wrote letters to her, tender sweet letters, hot steamy letters, and some that nearly broke her heart. For some out there, she was the only love they knew, her bright sauciness the only light in their eyes.

Once, she’d created a scene of her wearing nothing but a red paper heart saying ‘WON’T YOU BE MY VALENTINE?’ and that’s when she started receiving the letters by the bagful. Yes they would, in so many ways. Some were the Valentines of would-be lovers, saying exactly how they'd love to show her how they would be her perfect Valentine. Some were the Valentines of more platonic admirers, shyly sharing their quieter love and respect.

She treasured them all.

She wrote back to as many of them as she could, answering them in kind, tender, sweet, hot, steamy, heartfelt by turns.

Some of them wrote back and they began a regular correspondence. And some of those, eventually, were invited to the farm, on the understanding that there would be nothing more than that time between them. Even with that boundary, they came and gladly, worshipping her in person as they had from afar.

Hilda was a private person, for all she showed much of her skin on a regular basis. Or maybe because she did. While she didn’t mind being friendly to and with her admirers, she also let very few of them into her inner world.

Once, she shared a bit of herself by going through old photos for a scene, picking out one of her baby pics and pointing to herself to say ‘Yes, this is me back then.’ It too, was a very popular picture for a different group of men, many of whom became her regular correspondents and some of them became regulars to the farm.

It wasn’t a large life, the life she lived, but it was hers and her animals’, and she wouldn’t trade it for anything. She got to live a life full of loving-kindness, both to her fellow humans and to the animals that she shared her world with.

Who could ask for anything more?

* * *


End file.
